


Moments Lost and Moments Found

by PenguinofProse



Series: Season 7 speculation [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bellamy goes full-on Mockingjay, Clarke and Madi pick up the pieces, Dark!Bellamy, F/M, Kind of another time-jump AU, Lots of Angst, radio calls but different, season 7 speculation, void!bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24396043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse
Summary: In which Bellamy is brainwashed on Bardo and sent back to Eden to kill Clarke. Season seven speculation, featuring dark!Bellamy or void!Bellamy or whatever you want to call him. Angst with a happy ending.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Series: Season 7 speculation [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1783594
Comments: 75
Kudos: 302





	Moments Lost and Moments Found

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to a speculative S7 story, exploring what would happen if Bellamy was brainwashed and then sent back to time-jump Eden to kill Clarke. Happy reading!

He needs to get to Clarke.

That's the first thought in Bellamy's mind, the moment he comes round and realises he's been captured by a bunch of madmen wearing white coats.

He needs to get to Clarke, to warn her that there is yet another group of hostile humans still surviving somewhere in this inhospitable universe. He needs to tell her what he knows, so that she can come up with one of her world-saving plans. But most of all, he needs to get to her, because she just lost her mother and he can't imagine how she'll cope with losing him, too.

He's being carried down a gleaming-clean corridor, all stark white walls and pristine tiles. He can't move, and he doesn't know why. Hands are clasping him, yes, but rather loosely, yet all the same he cannot seem to do so much as twitch a toe.

There's a sign on the wall. _Welcome to Bardo,_ it says.

Huh. Some welcome.

The corridor goes on. Still he is carried, still he lies helpless. He hates feeling helpless – always has, always will. But there is no way he can fight back when he cannot even move.

He forces himself to make something useful of the situation and see what clues he can glean. They will all be helpful when he gets to Clarke, he reminds himself. She will need to know as much information as possible if they are to take down this new threat, together.

He looks at the tiles. They're about a foot square, he decides. So he starts counting them, making a rough estimate of how long the corridor is.

It's long. That's the answer he comes up with, in the end. His brain doesn't seem to be working right, and he doesn't like it.

There's a door in front of them, and they're heading straight for it.

 _Memory Reconditioning Unit_ , a sign informs him.

Huh. That doesn't sound good.

He's still unable to move as they take him into a room – gleaming white, again – and strap him to a chair. He cannot so much as wiggle a finger as they attach some complicated device to his head, the feeling of frustrated helplessness burning ever stronger in his chest.

He spares a moment to wonder about _memory reconditioning_. That sounds unpleasant, he reckons. It sounds like someone intends to mess with his head.

He stops wondering anything, very abruptly, as he feels a needle prick at his arm and the world turns black.

…...

He knows about Clarke's radio calls. He knows there are 2199 of them, that every one is addressed to him. He knows that they kept Clarke sane while they were apart. He knows that they are love letters, after a fashion, although the pair of them have never quite managed to talk about that.

He thinks he knows everything about them, but actually _hearing_ them is something else entirely. He is not prepared in the slightest to hear Clarke's voice echoing through the white room as he wakes up from his unwilling nap.

"Bellamy, if you can hear me – if you're alive – it's been 2199 days since Praimfaya. I don't know why I still do this everyday. Maybe it's my way of staying sane – not forgetting who I am... who I was."

She sounds broken, he thinks. She sounds lonely, and forlorn, and as if she's losing faith in him, and he cannot bear it.

He spares a moment to wonder how these strange men in their white coats got hold of this recording. That's more than a little suspicious, surely? That implies they've been to Earth, or that they have some remarkable technology.

But then he stops wondering anything, very abruptly, as he feels a needle prick at his arm and the world turns black.

…...

They carry on with the radio calls, next time he wakes up. This one is even harder to listen to – Clarke is desperate and despondent, stranded without water in the middle of a desert. This must be before Madi brought hope into her life, he reckons.

There are more after that. Midwinter in Eden, Clarke short of food and shivering loudly. Midsummer and a bout of sunburn that has her using staged laughter at her own stupidity to mask genuine pain and discomfort.

He's so caught up in worrying about her, and even in weeping for her misfortune, that it is a long time before he stops to question how these Men in White got hold of the tapes.

But as soon as he does ask himself that question, there is a stabbing pain in his arm and he sinks into oblivion.

…...

He doesn't know when the radio calls start to change. That first one was genuine, he could have sworn it. And the next few seemed realistic enough. But the next one doesn't sound quite right, somehow.

"Bellamy, if you can hear this – then you're alive. It's been 2199 days since Praimfaya. It's been safe for you to come down for over a year, now. Why haven't you? I guess you're not so loyal after all, are you? I guess I should have shot you when I had the chance."

He spares a moment to observe that this message really doesn't sound like Clarke. He just cannot fathom her ever saying something so vile.

The thought is barely half-formed in his mind when he feels that now-familiar prickling in his arm and stops thinking altogether.

…...

They get worse so gradually he doesn't even notice it. He doesn't know how long he's been listening to her calls, now – it might be hours, or it might be lifetimes. They blend into one another, message after message after message, until he can scarcely make out where one ends and the next begins.

She seems to be good at death threats, this Clarke. She makes a lot of them, or at least she has done recently. Somehow he can't entirely recall what she used to say, before.

"I'm coming for you." She says, now. "You're watching me, but you haven't seen a thing. My army is bigger than you think, and even if you could find it, your weapons can't hurt them."

He spares a moment, just half a heartbeat, to remember that there was a woman called Clarke who sent him love letters, once.

He wonders if it is the same Clarke.

And then he stops wondering, because that's what always happens when the needle hits his arm.

…...

There are pictures with the messages, after that. Even moving video footage, sometimes, playing out before his very eyes.

She's a monster, this Clarke.

They start with a photo of her waving a gun at him. Bellamy recognises himself, even though the photo is grainy, even though he looks rather younger and has a very different haircut.

"I have to make it a kill shot." Clarke's voice says, while he takes in the photo.

She has to make it a kill shot. That sounds familiar to him – but then again, that makes sense, doesn't it? Because he was there, he can see himself in the photo. So it sounds familiar, because it's actually in his memories.

There are other images, after that. She doesn't ultimately shoot him. Instead she exiles him to space at gunpoint.

That seems cruel, he thinks. But then he sees that it is less than nothing compared to the true cruelty she is capable of.

They show him Mount Weather, next. He knows it is Mount Weather, because he has been there, too. In fact, he is in this very scene as well.

"This ends now." Clarke says. "I will irradiate level five."

She does it. She actually goes and does it. And worse than that – she waves a gun at Bellamy, and makes him do it alongside her.

He spares a moment to wonder whether anyone has ever loved her. It seems like a lonely life, being a mass murderer.

But then a pricking at his arm tells him it's time to fall into a peaceful sleep, far away from such troubling questions.

…...

She's the Commander of Death. He understands that, now. He's seen everything that she's done – from setting hundreds of strangers on fire to banishing three-quarters of her own people from their safe haven.

She's a monster, pure and simple.

He learns a few other things, too. He learns that there's a simple solution to all this, that anyone who kills the Commander of Death can bring new life to the human race. That she's dangerous – a cancer – and that cutting her out is the only way to save humanity.

Most of all, he learns that he doesn't need her any more – that he never did – and that his connection with her was just another one of the lies she fed him, manipulating him into doing her will.

Manipulating people is what she does best. She's the queen of tricks and stratagems, as much as the Commander of Death. He has learnt that she is cunning, and that it will take a determined assassin to get rid of her.

And as long as he doesn't question anything he's learnt, there is no needle stabbing at his arm.

…...

He's a determined assassin. He understands that Clarke Griffin must be eliminated, for the good of humanity and the sake of peace.

He has no patience with any other message, no time to consider any other option.

The Men in White have decided he's ready now, and that makes him proud. They lead him back along the corridor, and he sees the _Welcome to Bardo_ sign fade into the distance with a hint of regret. Bardo has been a good home to him. They have been kind to him, here, and shown him the truth about the snake who made herself at home in his life for too long.

They take him to a small room lined with mirrors, first. They shave him and cut his hair, saying something about how it will help him to win Clarke's trust and get close enough to kill her.

He doesn't question it. He's learnt not to question what they tell him and show him. He simply looks in the mirror and stares at the face peering back at him. He feels like Bardo has been his home for lifetimes, but the man emerging before him looks youthful. He looks a lot like the man Clarke held at gunpoint. Perhaps that's the goal.

After that they clothe him, then lead him into another white room with a large, spiralling stone in the middle of it.

"You know what you have to do?" A Man in White asks the question, double checking he is ready for this most crucial of missions.

"My name is Bellamy Blake. My deepest desire is to kill Clarke Griffin."

The Man in White nods, and Bardo falls away in a fog of green.

…...

It's going to be almost too easy, he realises. He treks from the cave he arrives in, just a short distance towards the village where the monster has made her home. She's even left him a set of tyre tracks to follow, signposting the way to her soft, guilty throat.

She's on the radio when he gets there. She's holding the handset with one hand, and picking at some berries with the other. He can just about hear her words.

"The berries are ripe. I don't even know if you like berries – we never knew each other in berry season." She stops to swallow thickly. "I miss you, Bellamy. I miss you so much -"

She breaks off, and looks over in his direction. Cursing silently, he crouches behind a building. He must have made noise. He needs to do better – no careless assassin is going to be able to tackle Wanheda.

He spares a moment to wonder why she's radioing him if she hates him so much. Why is she telling him she misses him if she wants him dead, and he needs to beat her to it?

His arm prickles at that, and he jerks his neck around, confused. There are no Men in White here, so why the pain in his arm?

He shakes his head, bites his lip, brings himself back to the present.

His name is Bellamy Blake. His deepest desire is to kill Clarke Griffin.

When she looks away again, he emerges from his hiding place, knife firmly clutched in his hand.

He is less than six feet away when she looks up and notices him. He doesn't know what reaction he is expecting – surprise, perhaps, or some attempt to fight back. But this Clarke, this _monster_ who has burned worlds, simply looks up at him and laughs.

"Another one? God, Bellamy, I haven't seen you for _months_. I thought I was over my deranged hallucination phase."

He spares a moment to wonder why she's been hallucinating him, if she doesn't really care about him in the slightest. But then a sharp pinching at his arm reminds him that doing so is a waste of his time.

It's good if she thinks she's imagining him, he decides. That'll make it easier to get close enough to kill her. His knife concealed in his sleeve, he steps closer.

"Bellamy?" She sounds puzzled.

"Clarke." He supposes he ought to say something friendly if he is to keep up the charade that he is a figment of her imagination, but he no longer remembers how to tell Clarke Griffin kindly lies.

"Bellamy?" She is more alarmed than puzzled now, frowning at him and standing up.

He doesn't try to speak again. He doesn't see how it'll help. He just lunges for her, one hand closing around her throat, the other swinging up at her with the knife.

He spares a moment to note that this feels familiar, somehow. He cannot help but get the idea he has throttled her like this before, but he cannot for the life of him think when that could have been.

That moment is all she needs to fight back, to knock the knife away, to kick at his shins. She's a dangerous woman, but he already knew that. He fastens his hands tighter about her throat, starts shaking her in a frenzy.

"Bellamy?!" A flurry of brown braids and frantic energy bundles into him out of nowhere, knocks him off his feet, tears his hands away from Clarke.

The newcomer is a child, a young girl perhaps ten years old, and she puts herself between him and Clarke. That gives him pause. Clarke is the mass-murderer here, not him. He does not kill innocent people. He is only here to kill Clarke.

"Madi, get away." Clarke warns.

"No! No. He was hurting you."

"He won't hurt me, Madi. He's Bellamy, don't you see? There must have been a misunderstanding."

"There's no misunderstanding." He growls. "Get out of the way, child. I don't want to hurt you."

"But you want to hurt _Clarke_?" She asks, incredulous.

Of course he wants to hurt Clarke. His name is Bellamy Blake, and his deepest desire is to kill Clarke Griffin.

"I have my orders." He says, shoving the girl aside and reaching for Clarke's throat again.

Clarke backs away from him, her eyes and words desperate as she begs him to change his mind.

"Come on, Bellamy. This isn't you. I don't know what happened to you but – but this isn't you, OK? I need you to fight it for me. Please, Bellamy, fight back for me."

He's not here to fight. He's here to kill. He has her, now, his fingers closing around her throat again, covering the bruises that are already blooming there and squeezing hard.

Then there is a sharp pain at the base of his skull, and everything goes black.

…...

He wakes up to the weight of chains at his wrists and the sight of Clarke watching him from a couple of paces away.

Angry to find himself locked up, ashamed to have failed at his mission, desperate to get his hands around her throat, he starts to tug at his restraints.

"Stop, it Bellamy! Just stop it!" She begs, loud and audibly weeping.

She's a good actress, this monster. They warned him about that. He ignores her cries and keeps tugging.

"Bellamy, please! I don't want you to hurt yourself."

He snorts at that, a laugh sorely lacking in humour. "This isn't the first time you've locked me up, is it?" He asks, recalling one time she had him arrested in a bunker.

"I've regretted that ever since, you have to know that." She wipes a hand over her eyes.

He spares a moment to wonder whether _anyone_ is that good of an actress.

But then the needle is pricking his arm again, of course, so he gets on with his mission.

"Set me free." He demands.

"I can't." She shakes her head, despairing. "You're – you're not yourself, Bellamy. Please won't you tell me what happened to you?"

"Set me free." He repeats, a little louder.

"Please, I want to help you. I've seen the scars on your arm – did someone inject you with something? Have they turned you into a reaper?"

"Set me free!"

"Bellamy -"

"Set me free!"

He is still yelling his request as she turns and flees, slamming the door behind her, leaving him locked in a box ten foot square.

…...

The box is a shed, he decides. He doesn't remember how he knows what a shed is – sheds did not feature in his helpful education on Bardo, seeing as they do not have much to do with his mission to kill Clarke. But it's a small building made out of wood, and so he resolves that it must be a shed.

He has handcuffs on. He knows what they are – Clarke has made him wear them before. He had to put some on her, once, too, just for his own safety. And the handcuffs are chained to some kind of post in the floor, as if he were an animal to be kept tethered.

Apart from the handcuffs, he's reasonably comfortable. There's a lot of soft bedding in one corner, and he can't remember when he last used bedding. His home on Bardo was a good home, but there weren't _beds_. There was just his chair, and his injections, and his memories. And the chain is long enough for him to settle into the bedding and find a relaxed position, if he so chooses.

He doesn't so choose, of course. He is here to save the universe, not take a nap.

There's a bucket, which he knows instinctively he is supposed to piss into, but he cannot remember the last time he took a piss. In fact, he's not sure he can remember _how_ to take a piss.

He supposes it'll come back to him.

There's a lantern, too, which he can recharge by winding up a handle. He does so, for several hours on end, just for something to keep his hands busy. Just for something to keep his mind of the fact there's no one here for him to throttle, right this moment. And there's a book that lives next to the lamp, something called _Odyssey_ , but he doesn't read it. Reading doesn't seem like something a trained assassin should be spending his time on.

…...

Hours pass. At least, he thinks they do. He's not so good at judging time, since the lifetime he spent on Bardo.

The child visits him. He can't see why she would bother.

"I'm Madi." She announces, opening the door and hanging back outside the reach of his chained arms.

"You can come closer." He says. "I'm not here for you."

She does not acknowledge that. "You're Bellamy." She declares, instead.

Yes. Yes, that's true. He is Bellamy Blake, and his deepest desire is to kill Clarke Griffin.

"I'm Bellamy." He agrees, winding the handle of the lamp a little more.

"You're Bellamy." She repeats.

"I'm Bellamy." He echoes again, wondering why she is speaking to him as if he has lost his mind.

"You have a sister named Octavia." He hears that name, and flinches slightly. He's not sure why he flinches, but he does. It's not a needle-in-the-arm flinch, but something else entirely.

He remains silent and keeps winding his lamp.

"You have a sister named Octavia." The child – Madi – repeats.

He spares a moment – just a fraction of second – to wonder whether, actually, she might be right.

"I have a sister named Octavia." He tries the words on his tongue, and somehow, the _rightness_ in his heart at hearing them said outweighs the prickle in his arm.

"You have a sister named Octavia. You named her."

"I named Octavia. Octavia is my sister." He summarises. It stings, but it's worth it.

Madi smiles at him, nods and continues. "You were born in space, but you came to Earth to protect Octavia. That's where you met -"

"Clarke. Clarke Griffin." He starts to struggle against his restraints, hungry to feel her neck beneath his fingers. "The Commander of Death must die. Take me to Clarke!"

Madi flees, and slams the door, and he is left shouting at unyielding wood.

…...

The child is back some time later. It might be the next day.

Madi. The child is Madi. He's good at remembering the things that matter.

"I brought you some supper." She says, shoving a plate towards him at arm's length.

He cannot remember the last time he ate food. Food wasn't really a thing they bothered with, on Bardo. Curious – and remembering with a prickle that he used to like food, once – he reaches for an apple.

"I like apples." He comments, crunching down on it with relish. Apples are good, sweet and juicy, and they taste like Earth and memories.

"I know." Madi says with a nod. "You're Bellamy. You like apples."

"I named my sister Octavia." He adds, remembering that from last night. Recalling that it made his arm hurt, but that it was worth it, somehow.

"Your mother was called Aurora." Madi tells him now.

"My mother was Aurora. Aurora had two children – Octavia and Bellamy. She asked me to choose Octavia's name."

"She was named after the sister of Augustus." Madi prompts.

"Yes. Augustus had a sister called Octavia."

"Do you remember where you lived, with Aurora and Octavia?"

"We lived in space. On the Ark. Factory Station. We were poor." He has a feeling that might matter, later.

Madi nods, enthusiastic, but for some reason weeping. He can't understand that. "You eat your supper, Bellamy. I'll come back later and we can talk some more?"

He nods, and she goes on her way.

He spares a moment to observe that his arm has been stinging throughout their entire conversation, but that somehow, he never quite stopped to notice it.

…...

He talks to Madi about his childhood a lot, in the days that follow. He's getting good at the story of his childhood, and he's getting even better at days. He can see the pattern of light and dark through the cracks in his shed, and that helps him to keep track of time.

When they've exhausted the topic of his childhood, they move onto his adolescence.

"You were training to be a cadet." Madi informs him, sounding almost proud of him.

"Yeah. But – I think I didn't like it all that much? Or I half liked it? My mum talked me into it."

"Yeah. She wanted you to protect your sister."

"That's right." He agrees. "I had to join the guard to protect my sister. _My sister, my responsibility_."

"You remember that?" She asks, excited for some reason.

"What?"

" _My sister, my responsibility_. I didn't tell you about that."

"No. I remembered it." He states, proud of himself – although he's not sure why. He just knows that it is a phrase which brings that tangle of prickling arm and proud heart, and those feel like important phrases to remember.

He wonders why no one ever reminded him about his sister on Bardo. It's silly of them, he thinks – they took such good care of him, but somehow they forgot to remind him about Octavia.

He shakes that thought aside. He is grateful to the Men in White, and there is no sense in being annoyed with them over that one omission.

"Octavia still lived under the floor." He continues with his tale.

"Yeah. She did. She was getting too big for the hiding place."

That's a very specific detail, he muses. He spares a moment to wonder how it is that this child knows so much about his childhood.

And for the first time in as long as he can remember, _wondering_ does not make his arm sting so very much, so he goes ahead and asks her.

"How do you know all this, Madi? How do you know all about me?"

She swallows, eyes suddenly damp, face crumpling. And then she chokes out some words. "You like telling stories."

"I do." He agrees. He enjoys telling stories with Madi, when she visits.

"You've always liked telling stories. So – my mum ended up hearing your story. And then she told it to me."

"I don't know your mum." He says, confused. Madi is the only person he ever sees.

"You knew her once." She explains, still crying for reasons that escape him.

He nods, satisfied with that answer. He knew a lot of people, once upon a time. Before the Men in White showed him what was really important, showed him who was really worth focusing his attention on.

…...

They keep talking about his youth for a few days more. And in between times, as he winds his lamp and uses his book as a footrest – because really, what kind of assassin wants to _read_? - sometimes he thinks about things Madi has said.

He thinks about his sister, Octavia. He thinks about how much he apparently loved her, how he sacrificed everything to protect her. Once in a while, he spares a moment to wonder why the Men in White chose not to mention someone he loved that much. Were they not being honest with him?

Of course, that thought makes his arm sting.

He thinks about Madi's mysterious mother, too. It's strange that she never comes to visit – almost as strange as the fact that there seem to be so few people in this world he has come to, and that he only ever sees Madi. The mother seems to be taking quite good care of him, sending all of these meals and blankets. She offers to send more books, too, but he always tells Madi to refuse on his behalf.

One morning, he wakes up convinced that he has figured it out.

"Is your mother called Maya?" He asks Madi, when she arrives with his breakfast. He cannot remember who Maya is, exactly, only that she was a friend to him when he needed one.

She cries again. She does seem to cry a lot, this child. "No. No, not Maya. You remember Maya?"

"I had a friend called Maya." He recalls, although the memory stings. "You're sure it's not her?"

Madi shakes her head and takes a seat on the floor. That's odd, he decides. She doesn't usually sit. Normally she hovers near the door, as if expecting him to take a lunge at her, as if expecting to need a quick getaway.

"Do you remember anything else about Maya?" She asks.

"No."

She frowns. "Do you think you're ready to start the story of your time on Earth?"

He laughs. "I don't need to talk about _Earth_ , Madi. I know all about Earth. The story of my time on Earth is the story of Clarke, and her many attempts to kill me."

Crying louder, now, Madi stands up and bolts for the door.

…...

Bellamy is still cursing himself when Madi returns. He didn't mean to upset her – he would never mean harm to an innocent child. She was only trying to help.

"I'm sorry." He says, and the words taste unfamiliar on his tongue. He's not begged forgiveness in a while.

"That's OK. I shouldn't have been angry with you. It's not your fault you don't remember."

"It's not?" This is news to him.

"No. We think – something happened to you. It seems like you were drugged. With injections."

"There were injections." He recalls, feeling his skin prickle even as he says the words.

Madi gives him a damp smile. "You'll be OK. We just have to keep remembering. You want to give that a try?"

"If I work out the story of my time on Earth, will the injections go away?" He wonders out loud. He's been asking himself for a long time – ever since he started living in this shed – when the injections will go away. He's far away from Bardo, now, and the Men in White and their needles are nowhere to be seen, but still he can feel them stabbing at him like a pincushion.

"We hope so."

"OK then. Time to go to Earth."

"You found a way onto the dropship to protect your sister." She reminds him.

"Yes. I shot the Chancellor, but he didn't die." Bellamy is pleased about that. He doesn't kill innocents.

He only wants to kill Clarke. That's his deepest desire, in fact.

"The dropship landed, and you wanted to open the door. Octavia wanted to be the first outside."

"That sounds like her." He has started to remember his sister's personality, one barbed comment at a time.

"You didn't open the door right away. Someone tried to talk you out of it, first." She pauses, swallows loudly. "Clarke."

"Clarke?"

"Clarke." Madi confirms.

Huh. Bellamy tries to think this through. Why would Clarke stop him from opening the door?

"Did she want to keep me locked up? Is that why she wouldn't open the door? She's locked me up before, I think." He wonders out loud.

"She has." Madi concedes. "But no. That wasn't it. She wanted to keep you all safe. She didn't want anyone to breathe the air in case it was toxic."

"No." He shakes his head firmly, but he doesn't raise his voice, because he doesn't want to lose his temper with Madi again. He likes children, he remembers – or at least, he _thinks_ he remembers it.

"It's true."

"No. That can't be right. That doesn't sound like the Clarke I know."

…...

They develop a good routine, after that. Madi tells him stories of his time on Earth, and he tells her that she is wrong. Almost without exception, that is how it goes.

That is, it goes like that until they get to the dropship battle.

"The grounders were attacking and you were getting desperate." Madi tells him.

"Yes." He agrees. "Clarke set fire to the engines."

"Yeah. Well – she ordered it done. But yes."

"You're not going to try to convince me I'm wrong?" He's confused, here. Normally when Clarke has done something horrific in their story, the child tries to tell him he is imagining it.

"No. You're right. It was the only way to win the battle."

"She locked me out. She nearly killed me."

"Yes. That's true. She really regretted it." Madi claims.

"She _pretended_ to regret it." He corrects her. "That's what she does. She's a good actress, is Clarke. Good at manipulating people."

He spares a moment, just the blink of an inexplicably tear-filled eye, to wonder if there is an alternative, here. To wonder how the story might go, if Clarke _did_ regret it, and if she really did condemn people to an horrific fiery death only when there was no other choice.

The pain in his arm in overwhelming, but somehow, it is worth it.

…...

"Can you unchain me?" He asks, one morning. In their story, they have reached the point where his friends are in Mount Weather and he is breaking in to rescue them, and it seems silly to talk about freeing his people while he is still locked up.

"No. I'm so sorry." Madi shakes her head. "My – my mum, she wants to. But I think we have to keep you locked up just in case you lose your temper again."

"Lose my temper?" He asks, confused.

"You got very angry when you first arrived here." Madi tells him. "You hurt my mum."

Oh. That sounds awfully cruel of him. He doesn't like that – he's not supposed to hurt innocents. He only wants to kill Clarke Griffin. That's his deepest desire.

"I'm so sorry, Madi. Tell your mum I'm sorry."

Madi's crying again. She really is a watering pot, this child. "I will." She says, with a fierce nod. "I'll tell her you said that. Do you want a new book? She was offering another one this morning."

"I haven't finished this one." He gestures to his footrest.

It's a lie. He hasn't _started_ it.

…...

He knows that Madi's mother isn't Maya, now. He knows it, because they have reached the point in the story where Maya is dead.

"She killed them. Clarke killed them." He spits, venom in his voice.

"You killed them. Both of you, together."

He shakes his head. He is prepared for this argument. The Men in White taught him well. "Clarke made me pull that lever with her. She waved a gun at me."

"She waved a gun at Wallace."

"She waved it at _me_."

This is becoming more argumentative than their usual discussions, and he can feel his temper spiralling out of control.

Then Madi calms things down.

"She did wave a gun at you, much later. In the bunker. Are you remembering that by mistake?"

"I'm remembering that _deliberately_. It's important to remember that she held me at gunpoint. That she exiled me into space at gunpoint." He defends himself.

"It wasn't like that at all, Bellamy. She _saved_ you. And you left her on Earth, alone. She doesn't blame you – she wanted you to be safe – that's why she _saved_ you."

He shakes his head. He knows these parts of the story. They are important parts, and his friends on Bardo covered them thoroughly. There is no way his version of events could be wrong.

He spares a moment – the briefest of seconds – to notice that this child does seem to defend Clarke Griffin very fiercely, and to wonder why on Earth that should be.

But that makes his arm hurt, so he doesn't wonder for long.

…...

Clarke must be a _very_ good actress. That's the main point that sticks in his mind by the time they've worked through the story of the City of Light, and the tale of Praimfaya hot on its heels. There's just so much evidence, woven through this account, that he was genuinely very attached to her, before the Men in White showed him the truth. He can see no other way of interpreting the little details Madi adds to the story, of hands held and burdens shared and hugs given.

She really had him fooled, that monster. It's no wonder his deepest desire is to kill her, now, and make right the wrongs she has done him.

He tests some of this theory out with Madi, one day, teeth gritted against the pain in his arm as he forces the words out.

"I loved her, didn't I?"

"I think so." Madi nods, fiercely, tears streaming down her face as they seem to do so often.

"You _think_ so?"

"You never said it to her. And she – she wasn't very good at believing it. She didn't think she deserved you."

He snorts. "False modesty. More of her acting. She's a tricky one. Like Odysseus."

Madi lights up, which he finds a bit odd. Normally she is sad when he criticises Clarke. "You read it?" She asks, all eagerness.

"Read what?"

"The _Odyssey_. You read it?"

He looks, stunned, at his footrest. "This book?"

"Yeah. It's one of your favourites. It's the one about Odysseus. That's why – that's why my mum thought you might like to have it."

He remembers the story of Odysseus. He remembers it more clearly than he remembers the story of Bellamy Blake, if he's being truly honest. And it seems so obvious, now he reads the title, that this should be that story. But in his defence, he hasn't been thinking all that clearly, recently.

Without further hesitation, he snatches up the book, and flips it open.

"I'll leave you to read." Madi says, joyful, standing up and turning for the door.

"Thanks." He mutters, attention mostly absorbed by the story already.

On the threshold, though, she turns and says something that catches his attention. "I know you won't believe this, Bellamy. I know they've done horrible things to you and made you doubt everything you used to have faith in. But if you believe nothing else I ever say to you, I hope you'll believe that Clarke loves you, too."

He spares a moment to consider that, looks up from his book and takes in the tears in her eyes and the earnest expression on her face. She really does seem to believe what she's saying, does Madi, and he trusts the girl.

He allows the moment to stretch out longer, allows his thoughts to roam further. _Supposing it's true_ , he wonders. Supposing Clarke did love him – or does love him – but he's only forgotten, somehow? Supposing he's only forgotten, like he even forgot about Octavia, in the beginning?

His arm is still stinging as he allows the moment to grow into minutes.

His arm is still stinging when he goes to sleep, that night, thinking more clearly than he has done in lifetimes.

…...

When Madi arrives the following morning, there is something he has to say to her.

"I know who your mum is. I can't believe it took me so long to see it."

She freezes, backs up towards the door. Her hands are held out towards him in a placating gesture, and there is something in her eye that tells him she is ready to flee at any moment.

"Madi, it's OK. I'm not going to hurt you."

"You just want to hurt her."

That stops him in his tracks.

"I'm meant to want to hurt her." He compromises. "I don't know. I don't remember. But – I remember that I loved her."

Madi's eyes light up, and her hands fall. "You do?"

"Yeah. I still don't know who she was. I don't know whether I loved the mother you describe or a manipulative monster." He shrugs, helpless.

Madi takes her usual seat on the floor. "She has manipulated people. And she would be the first to admit that she's done some monstrous things. But neither of those things defines her, and she regrets them deeply. Being my mum doesn't define her either, but it's a better fit."

"I want to meet her." He chooses _meet_ rather than _become reacquainted with_ , because he doesn't trust any of his fuzzy memories of the Clarke he used to know. He's not sure, any more, which ones are there because the Men in White helped to place them in his head, and which ones are there because they are lodged in his heart.

"Bellamy, you know you can't. You hurt her."

"I'm still chained up. She's good at chaining me up." He curses himself. Such bitterness will not help his campaign to be allowed to meet her. "I can't hurt her while I'm chained up." He concludes.

"You won't be able to strangle her. But your words could still hurt her."

"More than she's being hurt right now?" He asks, in a sudden moment of clarity that has his arm in agony. "More than it hurts to have me living in her shed telling you I want to kill her? If you're right, and she loves me, living the way we're living now must be hurting her more than anything I could ever say to her face."

He doesn't know what he's expecting by way of response – perhaps more arguing, or at best a grudging agreement that Clarke will visit briefly tomorrow.

He is not expecting Madi to fly at him and envelop him in a hug. The last time he touched another human being was the day he had his hands around Clarke's throat, but this kind of closeness is more pleasant, he decides. This feels like family, and like comfort, and like a sense of belonging.

"You're going to be OK, Bellamy." She rejoices quietly, as she keeps squeezing him tight. "That's the Bellamy I wanted to meet all these years. You're coming back to us, you hear me?"

He spares a moment to notice that, in the midst of the hug, his arm does not sting so badly after all.

…...

He picks up his book again as soon as Madi leaves. It's a good book, about a familiar story, but processing the words seems to be harder than he remembers it being, before. That's an unsolicited memory, one the Men in White would have no use for, but he's getting better at gritting his teeth and ignoring the pain, now.

He has barely turned two pages when Clarke appears, panting as if she has run here, wearing an odd combination of smile and tears.

"Madi said you wanted to see me?" She asks.

He frowns, concerned. He's not supposed to want to see her. He's supposed to want to kill her.

But he finds that he _does_ want to see her, all the same.

"Yeah." He swallows heavily. "Thanks for coming. Sorry about – about before. About hurting you."

"I forgive you." She tells him, tears rolling down her cheeks. They are a tearful family, this pair, but he thinks he is starting to understand why.

"You've forgiven me before." He recalls, although he cannot remember more than that.

"Yes. And you've forgiven me before, too." That's another thing he didn't know about his former self, another thing to try to hold onto in his mission to work out who he is. He's a forgiving type, it seems.

He wonders if there is any such thing as a forgiving assassin.

"Was there a reason you wanted to see me today? Did you want another book? Some more clothes or blankets?" She asks, eager to please. _Surely_ this concern cannot all be an act?

"I remembered something important." He tells her, proud of himself, even as the Men in White try to needle at his arm.

"You did?"

"Yeah." He takes a deep breath, and summons his courage. "I used to love you."

She nods, fiercely, biting her lip but trying to smile all at once. It seems to him that this Clarke is quite a brave woman – but maybe being brave and being a monster are not mutually exclusive.

Without a word, she crosses the distance between them.

"What are you doing?" He asks, puzzled, as she reaches out for his wrists.

"I'm setting you free."

He snatches his hands away from her, alarmed. "You can't. You mustn't. What if I try to hurt you again?"

She shakes her head, lets out a hollow chuckle. "There's no way you will, Bellamy. There's no way you could hurt anyone you ever loved. If you remember you used to love me, I'm safe. I know they've changed you, but they could never change _that_."

"You're sure?" He asks, wondering how it is that she has such faith in him, when he has so little faith in her.

By way of answer, she unshackles his wrists. Her fingers glance over the skin of his hands as she does so, and he likes that. It helps with the pain in his arm.

It helps even more with the pain in his heart.

She stands again soon – too soon for his liking – and heads for the door. He's a bit disappointed at that, he decides. He's sad that she's leaving just as he's remembering what happiness once felt like.

"Aren't you coming? Don't you want to see the sun?" She asks, turning back to look at where he still sits on the floor

"Outside?" He clarifies, sure that he must have misunderstood. Understanding doesn't seem to be his best thing, recently.

"Yeah. There's no need to stay here now we know you're not going to hurt me." She offers him an encouraging smile.

Cautiously, he gets to his feet and approaches the door. He spares a moment to recall his orders to assassinate her. To remember that he is Bellamy Blake, that it ought to be his deepest desire to kill Clarke Griffin. And to remind himself that she is deceptive, the queen of tricks and stratagems, and that this open door could be just another one of her wiles.

There don't seem to be any tricks here, though – just an open door, and a stinging arm, and a young woman smiling through her tears.

The stinging is bothering him. It's been growing more constant, in recent hours or days, to the point that it seems to have been a permanent feature for this entire morning. He remembers how much better it felt when Clarke's fingers were against his skin as she unlocked the handcuffs, and decides to try something.

For the second time this morning, he summons his courage. He ought to be braver than this, he thinks. He's a determined assassin. He shouldn't be scared of speaking to a woman he used to love.

Maybe he doesn't want to be a determined assassin any more.

With that resolved, he has a go at speaking. "Could I hug you? I get that it might be too much, after – after what I did. But I just wanted to ask. I think hugs make it easier to cope with the Men in White."

She doesn't hesitate. There she is, with her damn bravery again, flinging her arms about him and squeezing him firmly against her. It's a good hug, he notices – although he can't remember when he last had a hug to compare it to, apart from that recent hug from Madi. This one is very different, he decides, more affectionate than familial. Clarke has her face buried in his shoulder, and his nose is pressed against her neck, and something about it sparks a memory he's pretty sure the Men in White would want to keep hidden.

"We've hugged like this before." He tells her, whispering against her skin, proud of himself for working it out.

She nods against him. "Yeah. Well done, Bellamy. I always thought we were pretty great at hugs."

She's right to think that, he decides. He pulls back just enough to look down into her eyes. "Have we done... other things before?"

She flushes, but doesn't let go of him. "You mean – did we have a physical relationship?"

He nods. He thinks that's a thing people in love sometimes do, although he's not sure where he got that information from.

"No." She says, then frowns and starts correcting herself. "Not really. We did do a lot of close hugging, and your sister used to think that was a little much. I kissed you once, just here." She touches a fingertip to his jawline. "And sometimes I could have sworn you would sneak a kiss to my neck when were hugging. But no sex, no kissing on the lips. We weren't in a relationship."

"But we loved each other." He reminds her, confused. He always seems to be confused, these days.

She nods, crying yet again. He really hopes she'll cry less, when he remembers who he used to be.

"We did love each other." She agrees. "But we never talked about it, or acted on it."

"That's stupid."

"I've been thinking that for four years now." She tells him with a sad smile.

"That's how long it is since I went to space?" He phrases it like that, rather than trying to decide whether he believes she exiled him. He can only tackle so many challenges in one morning.

She nods.

"You've missed me."

Another nod, as she bites her lip and cries harder.

He pulls her back into a tighter embrace, cradles her head with one hand to encourage her to cry into his shoulder. He's not sure where this is coming from, but he thinks he has comforted her with a hug when she was crying, once or twice before. It's an arrangement that benefits both of them, he decides. His arm burns less, and hopefully she doesn't feel so alone.

He remembers feeling alone in Bardo, before he realised the Men in White were his friends. He remembers that feeling alone was horrible, and he was grateful for their friendship.

No. He shakes his head, shrugs his shoulder a little as if pushing away one of those cursed needles. He won't have the Men in White and their lies ruining this reunion with a woman he used to love, a lifetime ago.

He spares a moment to wonder whether he might remember how to love her again, one day.

…...

They haven't achieved much this morning, Bellamy decides. They hugged for a long time, and Clarke cried for a long time, and since then she's spent a good couple of hours making a fuss of him and offering him everything from apples and books to a day trip to the lake.

He doesn't want any of those things. He just wants to get his story straight.

He tells her that, in the end – or rather, he snaps it at her. He's ashamed of himself for that, because she's only trying to help.

Either that, or she's a very good actress, a prickle in his arm reminds him.

No, she's genuinely trying to help. He can read it in her eyes, he decides. And now he's gone and snapped at her, and surely she's going to run away in fear, imagining that he's about to lose his temper and throttle her all over again.

She surprises him, instead, by looking him right in the eyes and speaking calmly. "I want that for you, too. But I don't want to push you too hard or too fast. Maybe you should get some rest and sleep in a real house for a couple of days first."

"I want to get started now." He insists.

She sighs. "You sure?"

He nods, and reaches for her hand. He knows it will help him, somehow, to be holding onto her for the conversation that is to come.

"OK. What can you tell me about the Men in White?"

"They helped me to remember things. About the times you tried to hurt me. About how you're dangerous, and I needed to kill you to save us all." He makes no move to do so, though, but rather takes a deep breath and prepares for a stab to the arm. "But I've been wondering if that's true. I wouldn't have loved you, if you were a monster."

It does hurt to say it. It needles at his flesh, but it is not the blinding pain he ought to feel for such a massive act of rebellion. Her hand in his chases the Men in White away, somehow.

She smiles at him, encouraging. "That's a good start, Bellamy. It sounds like they were messing with your memories. Can you remember where this was?"

"Bardo. But I don't know what Bardo is, or how I got there. Just that it was home."

Another nod. "OK. Can you remember how they did it?"

"There were needles. Injections." There is a beat of silence, while he racks his brain for anything else to say on the matter.

Nothing presents itself.

"Bellamy?"

"That's it. That's all I remember. I think that's the next bit of the story I should work on – how I ended up going from Earth to there. Will you help me? I think it might be harder, because Madi knew everything up until Praimfaya."

"You're saying your story goes on after Praimfaya?" Clarke asks, eyes narrowed.

"A long time after, I think. I'm sorry, I'm not very good at time."

"That's OK." Clarke soothes, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand. "That's OK, Bellamy. You're doing so well. You're right, I can't help you much with what happened after Praimfaya because I'm still living it. I don't know who these Men in White are, but their technology must be impressive."

"I think I thought that, too. Once."

She gives him the ghost of a grin. "Go on, have a try. Tell me what you remember after Praimfaya."

He frowns. The answer is, unfortunately, almost nothing at all. And the stinging in his arm is getting sharper, and it's been a long morning, and the Men in White don't want him to do this any more.

No. He's Bellamy Blake, and he's stronger than that.

"After Praimfaya I came home."

It's not much, but it's a start.

…...

They fish for a while, in the afternoon. Bellamy has never fished before, to the best of his knowledge – not that the best of his knowledge is much use to anyone, these days.

He resolves that learning a completely new skill is good. This is neither tainted by Bardo, nor something he wishes he still remembered from the time before. This is new, and belongs only to this strange life in a land of green with Madi and Clarke.

"I don't even know if I like fish." He announces to both of them, as the afternoon lengthens.

"I don't know whether you like fish, either." Clarke says, apologetic.

"We'll find out soon enough." Madi tells them with a grin.

He likes this. He decides that, maybe, he'd rather be a fisherman than an assassin.

…...

He's still sleeping in the shed. Clarke tried to get him to stay in the house with her and Madi, but he wasn't having that. What if, in the darkness of a nightmare, the needles should get the better of him? What if he were to wake up in the middle of the night to find that his hands were fastened around Clarke's throat?

He's still sleeping in the shed, so that he's far away, and so that he cannot hurt her. He tries to get her to put the handcuffs back on him at night, but she draws the line at that, and insists that she's never locking him up again.

That tweaks at something in his memory, but as soon as he starts to reach out to grasp at it, the needles drive him away again.

So it is that he spends the nights in his shed, but as soon as the sun is up each morning, he knocks at the door of the house and gets on with spending the day with Madi and Clarke.

They fish a lot – because he'd rather be a fisherman than an assassin, and because it turns out he even likes fish. They hunt a little bit, but not very much, because he finds it frustrating. Hunting and shooting were things he was good at, the Bellamy-before-Praimfaya that he has got to know through his own strangled memories and Clarke and Madi's stories. But the Bellamy who came here from Bardo hits trees more often than deer.

"It doesn't matter." Clarke tells him, one afternoon, as he punches a tree and curses the stag who is loping off into the trees.

"It matters." He bites out.

"Bellamy -"

"It matters. It matters because I want to be _me_ again, Clarke. A bunch of people may have messed with my memories of you, but they could at least have left me able to shoot a goddamn deer."

"You're still you." She tells him, crying again. He blames himself for that – he's always making her cry.

He snorts. He's not himself – or at least, he thinks he's not. He can't even remember who he used to be well enough to decide whether he bears any real resemblance to his former self, and that is somehow the worst thing of all.

"You _are_ , Bellamy. They haven't managed to change the most important things, OK? They haven't managed to change how much you care about other people. All the time you spend telling stories to Madi? And playing those silly childish games she likes? That's _you_. Believe me when I tell you that's definitely _you_."

He turns to look at her, and spares a moment to wonder whether she might, perhaps, be onto something. Whether maybe she makes a good point.

She presses her advantage. "You were sent here to kill me. And you couldn't, because you remembered you used to love me. That's the most _Bellamy_ thing I can imagine."

Satisfied, he gives up on the deer, and suggests that they go fishing, instead.

…...

The story after Praimfaya comes slowly, but he gets there, a little at a time.

"I had a girlfriend when we landed after Praimfaya. I'm sorry – I thought you were dead."

"A _girlfriend_?" Clarke sounds genuinely shocked, and Bellamy is pleased that he sent Madi to fetch water, relieved that she is not here to hear his latest revelation.

"Yeah. Space was difficult. I thought you were dead." He repeats.

Clarke nods, and makes a game effort to collect herself. "Who? Raven?"

He ducks his head, embarrassed. "Echo."

There is an agonising pause. And then -

" _Echo_?" She repeats. "The traitor? The spy I insisted on saving when everyone else thought we should leave her to die?"

"I agreed with you."

"You didn't really agree with me. You just loved me. There's a difference."

He lets her have that, and acknowledges her victory with a smile. "We got together in space. But then I landed and realised you were still alive and it got confusing."

Clarke is frowning. "Did you break up with her?"

He honestly doesn't know. "I guess I must have done? I don't remember."

"That's OK." She lies brightly. "You're doing really well, Bellamy."

She rewards him with a hug, and he presses a kiss to her neck, because apparently that's a thing he used to do, sometimes.

…...

He keeps reading the book about Odysseus. It's slow going, and frustrating. The Bellamy who lives in Madi's stories was good at words, used them to inspire and sway a crowd, but this Bellamy struggles to follow sentences that are more than a single line long.

Those Men in White have a lot to answer for, and one day he intends to ask them some pointed questions.

In the meantime, though, he turns another page. It's growing late, and he ought to go back to his shed soon. Madi is already safely asleep in the next room, and he knows Clarke will head to bed before long.

He looks up, just for a moment, just to give his brain a break from trying to wade through the words.

Clarke is supposed to be sketching, but really she is looking at him. She does that a lot, he has noticed. In fact, he thinks the way she seems constantly to be watching over him is part of the reason he's grown so convinced that her love was no act.

He offers her a sad smile.

"Was I better at reading, when you loved me?" He asks. He has learnt that making light of serious situations and helping her to smile was one of the things she loved about him, so he's been starting to try to have a go at bringing that facet of his personality back to life.

She shakes her head, firm and sure. "I _still_ love you. I mean it. I've told you before – the real Bellamy is still in there. He's still _you_."

"You're putting a lot of faith in a man who tried to strangle you."

"I always put my faith in you, and it always turns out to be the right thing to do."

He spares a moment to muse that they must have made one hell of a team, back in the day. He can feel, even now, that their connection was a special one.

Maybe that's why the Men in White were so keen to break it, he wonders. Maybe they realised that Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin were a force to be reckoned with, together.

…...

He has remembered most of the war over Eden and the trouble in Polis when they reach the sticking point. And the problem with sticking points in this part of the story is that Clarke cannot help him out, because these stories are still to come in her future, so she has no memory of them.

"I don't know what happened next." He tells her, tears welling in his eyes. He has been trying to remember this all day, and he just cannot do it.

"That's OK." She squeezes his hand, because she knows her touch makes it hurt less. "We've been trying for a while, Bellamy. How about we take a break?"

"I don't want to take a break!" He snaps.

She breathes, slowly, patiently, waiting for him to come back to himself.

"I don't want to take a break." He repeats. "I'm sorry for losing my temper. I just want to remember the story."

She nods, still holding his hand, and tries a different approach. "Is there anything else you do remember that happens after this? Some time further on in the story? Instead of telling me what happened as soon as I was locked up by Octavia, why don't you try to remember another part?"

"The next thing I know we're looking out over the new planet, over a century later, and I've got my arm around you." He laments.

"That does seem like a big gap." She concedes.

"I think it's because they showed me a lot of things from that time on Bardo. It's harder for me to remember the things they showed me when you're holding my hand and keeping the needles away."

She loosens her hold. "Do you want me to -?"

"No." He grips her fingers tighter. "This is better. If it's something they showed me, it means we must have argued or been on different sides anyway. I'm not sure I want to remember it."

She gives a sad smile. She's getting good at those – better than he remembers her being before, and he hates himself for causing it. "We must have made it right again, though. You just said that the next thing you remember you've got your arm around me and we're looking at a new planet."

"Yeah. That's the important thing about our story. We always forgive each other." The rule is one he remembers, clear as day.

She hugs him for that, and it feels like home.

…...

He remembers the betrayal that should have filled that gap very abruptly, one night, in the midst of a nightmare.

She really is a monster, he decides, in that moment. It was kind of the Men in White to help him to see that. And all her kind words and books and apples are nothing compared to the way she left him to die.

He screams, loud and long, and starts hammering away at the door of the shed.

Then he remembers that it's unlocked, and turns the handle, and starts stalking towards the house.

He is stopped very abruptly, by a flurry of blonde crashing into his chest.

"You're OK, Bellamy." The figure whispers, wrapping her arms around him. "You must have had a nightmare. Just breathe for me, keep breathing, and then you can tell me all about it when you've calmed down."

He doesn't want to calm down. He doesn't want to breathe.

His name is Bellamy Blake, and his deepest desire is to kill Clarke Griffin.

He fastens his hands about her throat. It's easily done, because she's hugging him – an unusual lapse of judgement from this most cunning strategist.

"Bellamy?" She chokes out, confused.

He spares a moment to wonder why that makes him want to stop strangling her. He lets his grip slacken, just a little – he doesn't let her go, but he stops squeezing.

"Bellamy." She repeats his name, and she sounds gentle rather than scared, and that takes him by surprise.

He slackens his hold a touch more.

"You don't want to do this, Bellamy. You used to love me, remember? Whatever has upset you, we can talk about it. But you don't want to hurt me. You used to love me."

He lets her go completely, then, and falls to the ground in a heap of shame and fury.

"I think I might still love you. Or part of me still loves you. I think that's why I'm so angry that you're going to betray me in your future."

"I am?"

"Yeah. That's what I couldn't remember earlier. I remembered it in a nightmare just now."

"You want to talk about it?"

He spares a moment to squeeze at his arms with his shaking fingers, to will away the pain and wonder whether he dares to hug her just now.

"I don't want to tell you about it." He decides, in the end. "I don't want you to have to live with knowing what you're going to do. I – I understand why you did it, and I've forgiven you. Now that I've calmed down, I remember that too."

She's crying, of course. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for whatever it is that I'm going to do. I love you too, you know that?"

He hugs her tight, and presses his lips to her neck.

…...

Their first days on Sanctum are easier to remember. He recalls happiness, and the hope of a fresh start, and the joy of reconciling with Clarke after her betrayal. It feels weird to tell her things that are from her future, but it's better than not telling his story at all.

He's half way through the story of trekking through the forest from the transport ship when he realises something.

His arm isn't stinging.

He stops, stunned, and stares into nothingness for a moment.

"Bellamy?" Clarke prompts him, squeezing at his hand. "You still with me? What happens after you tell me not to fall behind?"

"It doesn't hurt." He tells her, tone full of wonder.

It takes a while for her to catch his meaning, but when she does, she smiles fit to burst. "That's great news."

"Can we try something? Can you let go of my hand for a moment?" He asks.

She does. She lets go of his hand, and it hurts, but it's not unbearable. The Men in White really are starting to fade away, as he makes his life in this land of green.

"I think I'm getting better." He tells her, cautious, not quite daring to believe it could be true.

She nods, encouraging, proud of him. He finds himself flooded all over again with gratitude for the way she has stood by him, through this. It can't be what she was hoping for, when she saw him appear in the village all those weeks ago.

He kisses her.

He spares a moment to note that he wasn't planning to do that. He decided long ago that it would complicate their situation, that it wasn't fair on her to go around kissing her if the Bellamy from her timeline was going to show up with a girlfriend in a couple of years.

But he does it all the same, the prickling at his arm replaced once and for all by a glow in his heart and the softness of her lips against his.

They kiss for a long time, gentle, exploratory, neither of them quite sure how this changes the story they have been telling and retelling between them. Her fingers are warm on the back of his neck, and he tangles his hand in her hair and tilts her head, just a little, just to get the perfect angle.

It's the first time he's found himself thinking of anything as _perfect_ for quite some time. But everything about this kiss with Clarke is perfect, from the breathy way she sighs into his mouth, to the light in her eyes when at last he pulls away.

"Was that OK?" He asks her.

"Yeah. Are you – were you OK with it, too?"

He nods. "It's good to make new memories. It feels better than trying to sort through the old ones."

She smiles at him. He reaches forward to place one last peck on her lips.

And then he goes to spend the night in the shed, because that's what he does. That's the only way he can be sure he won't hurt her.

…...

He gets better more quickly after that. Or maybe it only feels quicker, because he's starting to get better at time, now, as well as at remembering. Reading is still a bit of a slog, but he's managed to work through a couple of books since he's been here.

Kissing Clarke helps a lot. That makes it sound horrible, as if he's using her – like he was using Echo, up on the Ring, he now recalls. But this isn't like that, because they both genuinely love each other, and kissing is just one of the many ways they show their support.

He won't let himself touch her beyond that, though. He's still worried that having his hands about her waist during sex could morph a little too easily into having his hands about her neck during murder.

He keeps telling his story, and today he tells it while the three of them walk to the lake together.

"I was so heartbroken when they killed you." He recalls, now, talking about his time on Sanctum. "I wanted to be strong for Madi, but I was falling apart inside."

"I was there?" Madi pipes up.

"Of course."

"What am I like in the future?" The child asks.

"You're strong. Stronger than any child should have to be."

He spares a moment to remember his mistake, to stew in self-loathing for putting that damn chip in her head.

But then Clarke's lips are pressed to the back of his hand, and the moment passes.

…...

He thinks he is done with the nightmares. He thinks he is _almost_ done with the Men in White and the needles.

So it is, of course, that the universe proves him wrong.

He dreams that Clarke is dead on a table before him, and he is trying to will her back to life. He dreams that the Men in White are stabbing at him, slashing at him – when did their needles become knives? - and telling him to let the monster die.

He dreams that he does. He dreams that he walks away, and leaves her to her fate.

He wakes up, panting, and remembers the truth. Clarke lives – that's the truth. Clarke lives because he coaxes her back to life with his bare hands and eager lips. Clarke lives, as long as he can keep the Men in White at bay.

He hears a knock at the door, and then her voice.

"Bellamy? Can I come in? Are you doing alright?"

He lets out a humourless snort. "Nightmare. Sorry."

"Can I come in?"

"I'm not going to hurt you." He confirms, knowing that is the question she was really asking.

Scarcely a moment passes before she is by his side, perched on his makeshift bed of blankets, running soothing hands up and down his arms.

"You're OK." She tells him. "You're safe. I'm right here, and I'm fine."

"I dreamed about the time you died." He tells her.

"I... I died? In your memories?" She blinks a little.

"I brought you back. You're OK."

She nods. "Thanks, I guess."

He presses his lips briefly to hers, then settles himself back into his blankets. "I'm OK, Clarke. Thanks for coming to check on me, but I'm fine. You should go back to bed."

"I'm staying here." She announces. She's stubborn, he remembers – that's one thing both the truth and the Men in White are agreed upon.

"You shouldn't." He argues half-heartedly.

"I want to. I'm going to stay here every night from now on until you admit defeat and come sleep in the house." She informs him, snuggling into his arms.

The next night, he sleeps in her bed. She was generous with the blankets, right from the very start, but he has to admit that her bed is more comfortable.

…...

The closer Bellamy comes to the end of his story, the closer he comes to something else, too.

The problem is, of course, that he can't remember what. He cannot work out what he's drawing close to, only that it is some important truth that fills him with a deep sense of foreboding.

When he does remember it, at last, he remembers too much, too soon, all at once in a chaotic mess that has him frantic and Clarke worried sick about him.

"I was with O. The anomaly – they must have kidnapped me."

"Who?"

"The Men in White. They took me to Bardo – I didn't want to go. I was desperate to get to you. I remember I needed to get to you."

"Why? Was I in danger?"

"I don't know. I guess you must be, if they want me to kill you. But I remember that you just lost your mum and I didn't want you to lose me, too."

She smiles a sad smile, and presses a kiss to his mouth. "I'll be OK. I'm strong."

He knows she's not just talking about the future, there. He knows that she is one step ahead of him, as always, reassuring him that she will survive when he goes to do what must be done.

"I have to go back." He tells her, tears rolling down his cheeks. "I have to get back there as soon as I can and find you."

"I know." She says simply.

"You're not – not angry?"

She shakes her head, biting down on her lip as the tears fall. "I'm going to miss you. I'm going to miss you _so much_. But I managed four years without you, I can wait a few more. I always knew you'd have to go back one day, I guess."

"You did?"

"Yeah. Call it instinct, or premonition. Or maybe I've just realised that nothing good ever sticks around in my life for long."

…...

They set out for the anomaly the next day. He remembers the way. He's a bit distressed that he doesn't remember _how_ he remembers it, but he can't be hanging around to wait for that to come back to him. He remembers more clearly than anything the sense of urgency he felt in Bardo, before the Men in White got to him, so he figures he cannot afford to stay here any longer.

His arm starts to sting as they walk through the forest, and that catches him by surprise. His arm has been doing OK for a couple of weeks now.

"What is it?" Clarke asks. She must have felt his hand tense in hers.

"Nothing." He lies brightly. He has to get back to her, in his time. He cannot let a silly little thing like a stinging arm hold him up.

They keep walking. He lets go of Clarke's hand, after a while – not because she's bugging him, or anything, but just because her palm is slightly clammy.

But she _is_ bugging him, actually, for the record. She keeps stealing these furtive concerned glances at him, and it's annoying. It just feels so _fake_ somehow, as if she's trying to pretend she cares about him when he's a determined assassin and he doesn't need her -

Huh. This is not the plan.

He stops walking and clenches his fists.

"Bellamy?"

His hands reach for her neck, quite of their own free will.

"Bellamy?"

"You need to get away from me." He tells her, the pain in his arm almost blinding. "You need to get out of here, Clarke. I can't – I don't know why this is happening."

She ignores him. She's stubborn, his Clarke. She actually approaches more closely, his stupid self-sacrificing Clarke, and reaches up to clasp one of the hands he's stretching out to throttle her.

It gets a little better with her touch. Only a very little. Just enough that he can remember that day when she opened the door of his shed, and told him he could never murder anyone he had ever loved.

"You love me." She tells him now. "You're Bellamy, and you love me. And I know you don't hurt people you love. You protect them. _That's who you are_."

He nods. He thinks that might be right, but he's struggling to remember, just now.

"We're going home." She informs him briskly, dragging him by the hand, back the way they came.

This is good, he decides. He's Bellamy Blake, and his deepest desire is to make a home with Clarke Griffin.

…...

She takes him fishing, the moment they get home. He sees it as a fairly transparent ruse to get him out of earshot of Madi and give him something to concentrate on other than his recent failure. He wants to tell her not to bother – he has more or less come back to himself, now, and he doesn't need to talk about it.

He just needs to sit and wallow in the shame of it.

"I think we should let you heal a little longer before we try that again." She says.

"I'm sorry." He replies.

That has her snapping her neck round to face him. "What for?"

"For letting you down. For not being able to go back and get to you."

She leans into him, and wraps an arm around his waist. "Don't apologise for that, Bellamy. You're not ready yet, and that's fine. If you can get back here from the future, time must be working different anyway. I'm sure you can stay here until you're ready and still get back to me in your time."

"I'm sorry for – for turning again." He continues, ignoring her. "I'm sorry for turning in the first place. It's pathetic, right? I should have been stronger. If I really loved you, I shouldn't have let them turn me against you like that."

"You did love me." She insists, firmly. "I know we didn't talk about it, but we _knew_ it, OK? And that's what counts. You can't tell me you didn't love me well enough when you literally brought me back to life. You remember telling me that story?"

He remembers it. It's one of his favourites to look back on, now that he knows that chapter at least has a happy ending – even if he's still waiting to see how the plot will finally resolve itself.

"I remember."

"Great. Keep remembering. That's all you have to do, Bellamy. Just keep remembering. Can you do that, for me?"

He nods, and begins to tell the now-familiar tale. "Gabriel had to stop your heart to upload to the memory drive. Josephine – she tried to stop him – but she couldn't."

Clarke rests her head on his shoulder, and curls up at his side as he tells her their story.

…...

They don't know how to undo it permanently, how to ensure he will not have a relapse as he approaches the cave. Clarke has her theories as to how the Men in White manipulated him, and she figures that it involved planting new memories in his mind while using some of the chemicals from the anomaly to alter his mental state. That's as far as they get.

They focus on healing, for a couple more weeks. He tells his story, a dozen times, a hundred times. He fishes for hours on end, until Clarke begs him to stop because the smokehouse is full, and Madi begs him to stop because their home stinks of fish.

He kisses Clarke, a lot, but he doesn't dare to do much else with her. He doesn't dare to tell her about his fears – that he will relapse again, that he won't be able to get to her on the other side. And he certainly doesn't dare tell her about his desires.

She beats him to it, on that front, in the end.

"Have you taken a vow of chastity or something?" She grumbles, in bed one night, as he pulls away from kissing her.

He spares a moment to wonder whether he was right to pull away. She seems disappointed, but he was only trying to keep her safe.

"What do you mean?"

"We're in love, and you're going to disappear back into another world the first chance you get, and you still won't do more than kiss me?" She is more _annoyed_ than disappointed, he corrects himself.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't hurt me. If there's one thing we've established in the last four months, it's that hurting me is the last thing you would ever do." She sighs. "It's up to you. Of course it is. I just – I want you, if you want me."

"Of course I want you." It's absurd to even consider that he might not.

"We could start slow. Like we did with the stories." She suggests.

He likes that idea. They could take small steps together, could pause if it gets to be too much. They could talk about what's going on, check in with one another to ensure they're both ready for the next step.

He takes his lips back to hers, kisses her gently, kisses her with all the love in his heart – and that's really quite a lot of love, it turns out. And when he's relaxed, and focused on the moment, and can hardly remember what an assassin even is, he allows one hand to slide up her shirt, just a little way, just enough to feel the heat of bare skin beneath his palm.

She sighs into his mouth, pulls her lips away from his to nibble at his ear lobe.

He spares a moment to wonder why her cheeks are wet, and to wonder whether he's gone and made her cry again.

But then her lips are back on his once more, and he stops wondering anything.

…...

He gets better at communicating with her, slowly, gradually. He's been comfortable talking to her about his story for a while, but now he talks about what's going on in his own head, too.

"I'm scared I won't get to you in time." He tells her one morning, while they tend to their vegetable plot.

He's not sure when he started considering an assortment of limp cauliflowers _theirs_ rather than _hers,_ but he rather likes it. After all, his name is Bellamy Blake, and his deepest desire is to make a home with Clarke Griffin.

"That's OK, Bellamy. Maybe you won't. You've already saved me so many times, and we've had this time together neither of us expected. If I die, that's not your fault."

"Most things are my fault, in my mind."

"You've always been like that." She tells him fondly, but tinged with exasperation. "That's nothing new. You were like that before Bardo, and I hope to spend the rest of my life trying to convince you to stop blaming yourself."

"You think there's a life for us, outside this pocket in time?"

"I think there's a life for us wherever the universe takes us."

He spares a moment to kiss her, soft and longing. Tears prickle at his eyes, though, and that rather ruins the moment.

He needs to get going, and soon.

…...

He doesn't make it back to Bardo on the second attempt, either.

He halts just outside the cave, panicky and sweating, knowing he will turn on her if he goes even one step closer to his goal. He is sorely tempted to push on through it, but that wouldn't help, he reminds himself. There's no point getting back to Bardo hating Clarke again. That would just be handing the Men in White their victory on a silver platter.

He turns to Clarke, and bites out his confession.

"I can't do it. I'm so sorry, Clarke. I still can't do it."

"That's OK. Closer than last time. Let's go home and try again later." She says, soothingly, as she turns and starts to tug him back down the path.

He can't follow her. He can't follow, because he has been hit very abruptly by the truth in her words.

This _is_ much closer than last time. So close, in fact, that it's doing something to his memories. Something more than making him want to kill Clarke – something more _useful_ than making him want to kill Clarke.

He remembers Bardo. He remembers what they did to him.

With that realisation, he makes haste to get moving. He is armed with information, now – all that information he was so desperate to carry back to Clarke, a lifetime ago – and the sooner they get home, the sooner they can start to build a plan.

He begins to explain it to her as soon as he is far enough from the cave to be able to talk comfortably.

"They used your radio calls." He tells her. "And then I think – they started to sound wrong? At first you sounded sad, but then you started to sound angry and dangerous."

"They used fake radio calls?" She asks, intrigued.

"Yes. Along with the injections. And then there were pictures and film."

"And more injections?"

"Yeah."

She squeezes his hand tight as they keep walking. "We'll work this out, Bellamy. I've never found a problem yet that you and I can't solve together."

…...

It is Clarke who comes up with the plan. Of course it is – that's one of the reasons he was so desperate to get back to her in the first place, so that she could come up with one of those cunning world-saving schemes of hers. He can't believe he ever let the Men in White persuade him she was out to kill them all, not save the human race. Sure, she has killed many people along the way, but he's done that too. And they've only ever killed when there was no other choice. He understands that, now.

Clarke's world-saving plan is a simple one, on this occasion. As his memory was reconditioned – a word he's remembered recently, and finds useful for understanding what happened to him – using fear and drugs and lies, she decides that the way back to himself lies in security and fresh air and truth.

The fresh air is easily found, in this valley of green. Time and again, Clarke laments her lack of medical equipment and says she wishes she could check a sample of his blood to see whether the drugs are out of his system. But he's pretty sure the needles are long gone, by now.

Security is easy, too. Security is the warmth of Clarke's arms, or the familiarity of his place at Madi's side when they set out on a family expedition. He's never felt so safe in his life, and he makes a point of telling Clarke that as often as she's willing to hear it.

Then there's the truth, which is harder to come by.

" _Telling_ your story doesn't seem to be enough." Clarke suggests, thinking aloud. "I think to reverse the reconditioning, we need to undo what they did. We need to give you real radio calls, and real pictures and film. Teach your mind to sort the truth from the lies."

He nods. It makes sense – or as much sense as any of this madness makes – and it has to be worth a try.

…...

They start with the radio calls the next day. Clarke asks him to suggest a message he half-remembers from Bardo, and she intends to repeat to him the true, original version of it as well as she can recall it.

She holds him while she does it. That was another brilliant idea of hers to help him to feel secure. She sits on the floor, and he nestles between her legs almost like an overgrown child, leaning back into her arms with his back against her chest. It's a good plan, he decides. It makes him feel safe, and loved, and everything he didn't feel, on Bardo.

It's awkward for her to use the radio while they're sitting like that, but she does so anyway. She thinks it's important that she actually has hold of the handset to reinforce that this is a real radio call.

"There was one where you were in Polis. You couldn't get into the bunker and you sounded angry."

"I wasn't angry in that message, in the real one." She tells him. "I was desperate, devastated. I'd just realised I was going to be alone."

She speaks into the radio for a couple of minutes, a summary of her dashed hopes and pressing fears, a desperate plea for him to reply and tell her she's not really alone. He doesn't respond, to avoid ruining the charade, although he wants to. He wants so badly to turn in her arms and press his lips to hers and tell her he'll never leave her alone again.

But he can't, because he knows he will. He knows he has to.

"That does sound more like you." He says, when she is finished with her call.

"What do you mean?"

"You don't get frustrated much. You turn it in on yourself and get despairing, like that." He thinks a little longer. "You know, that was one of the things that I remember noticing, early on, before they really got to me. The fake calls just didn't sound like you. I couldn't imagine you saying things like that."

He spares a moment to turn and kiss her, at last, deciding that they have denied themselves that for a whole ten minutes, and that's quite long enough.

Then he settles back into her arms, and they move onto the next call.

…...

The radio calls work well. They have a good routine going, and it is easy to recreate the original calls to replace the impostors placed in his mind by the Men in White.

The pictures, however, present more of a problem.

"I don't know how they had so many photos and films of us." He laments, confused, but at least confused in a very different way to he used to be confused. In fact, at this very moment, he has a book open in his lap which he is actually reading with some success.

"They have some crazy technology, from what you've said. Maybe they even had spies on Earth?"

"That would make sense, I guess. They have a technique to train assassins, why shouldn't they be training spies too?" He wonders out loud.

"I've been thinking, maybe we don't need to worry about not having photos. Maybe it's not the quality or realism of the image that matters, but the content. Maybe I could draw the scenes."

"Could I help with that?" Madi asks, looking up from some structure she is building out of twigs on the living room floor.

"That would be lovely." Bellamy says, hoping he sounds encouraging. He thinks that drawings from both members of his perfect family would add to his feeling of security, if nothing else.

He spares a moment to recall the grainy image they started out with, back on Bardo. That was far from high quality, the details indistinct, but still it had the impact they needed.

Then he stops thinking about that, joyfully distracted by the realisation that his arm feels as right as rain.

…...

The sketches do work, it turns out, and soon their home is papered in pictures of the key moments in his life with Clarke. Instead of the corrupted images they showed him on Bardo, where she forced him to pull the lever in Mount Weather at gunpoint, there hangs above their bed a sketch of the two of them joining hands to save their people.

He looks up at it one night, still flushed and over half way to ecstatic from making love to her, and wonders how he could ever have let them manipulate him into throwing all this away.

"I'm sorry." He whispers into the darkness, for perhaps the thousandth time since she opened the door of that shed.

"Don't be. I think I should start apologising instead. What were you doing on Bardo without me in the first place?"

"Looking for my sister."

"You've never told me that before."

"I didn't remember before. It's still coming back to me."

She nods, satisfied, and presses a kiss to his shoulder. He's still staring up at that picture, can't quite take his eyes off it.

"I love you." Clarke reminds him, in case he has forgotten in the last ten minutes. "I loved you even then, you know."

"What? When?"

"That picture. Mount Weather."

He snorts. They are terrible at timing. "I loved you then, too. That was half the reason I helped you pull the lever."

"You remember?"

"I've always been better at remembering loving you than remembering much else."

He means it as one of those little light-hearted comments she likes so much, but somehow it has them both crying softly.

…...

Their solution to the lack of film is to act out the pivotal scenes from their story. He feels somewhat ridiculous for that, but it helps to strengthen the secure ties he has with his new family if nothing else. Madi absolutely loves it, because she gets to play every single character in each scene except Bellamy and Clarke, doubling or tripling up on parts, jumping about all over the place.

It ought to make the process more farce than therapy, but somehow it works all the same. Maybe it's the sheer love that goes into these times they spend together, he wonders.

They start simple, with the dropship landing and opening the door.

"Hey, just back it up, guys." Bellamy remembers his line without prompting.

"Stop! The air could be toxic."

"If the air's toxic, we're all dead anyway." He says, and holds Clarke's eye proudly for just a fraction of a second.

That's when Madi bundles onto the scene, of course, doing her best impression of Octavia – a woman she has never met, but has heard enough stories about that, of course, she has her down to a tee.

…...

Some scenes are harder to act out than others. Some moments from their story are naturally more painful, and some have been more sorely abused by the Men in White.

They manage Mount Weather well enough. The grounder massacre and subsequent handcuffs are tough, but they get through it, Bellamy muttering darkly that it's about time for him to let himself take the blame for a few murders, rather than believing the lie he learnt on Bardo – that he would never hurt an innocent person, and that Clarke was the murderous monster, out of the two of them.

It's when they get to the bunker door that they hit problems.

Clarke is worried about a lot of things, with this memory, and Bellamy rather wishes she would just shut up and give it a go. He can feel his temper fraying – not because the assassin inside him is about to break free, but because she won't stop wrapping him up in cotton wool.

Sometimes healing hurts, but it's worth it. He wants to make her understand that he embraces the fact that this will be a difficult morning.

"I don't see how we're going to help you feel secure while we're doing this." She frets. "I can't hug you while I'm pointing a gun at you. At least in the handcuff scene I could still touch you -"

"Clarke. It's fine. I'm at home, with you and Madi. I know nothing is going to happen to me."

She sighs. "At least let me wave a pencil around instead of a pistol."

"No. A gun. A real gun, and loaded. I have to see that you really wanted to do it, but couldn't. I have to see how much you love me."

"I am not pointing a loaded gun at you."

It is his turn to sigh, now, exasperated. "At least tell me it's loaded. At least pretend."

She does pretend, and she pretends well. He spares a moment to notice that she is a good actress, but not in quite the way the Men in White would have had him believe, all those months ago.

Her hand shakes, and she lowers the gun. And he remembers all over again just how much Clarke Griffin loves him.

…...

They replicate every scene they can think of it, every moment they can remember between the two of them right up to Praimfaya.

And they end up here, back in Becca's lab in their collective imagination.

He is relieved to learn that Clarke remembers her lines from that day every bit as well as he does. He spent five years in space trying to memorise her words and cling to the recollection of that day – he knows that, now – so it is a comfort to know that the conversation was every bit as important to her as it was to him.

"Please, Bellamy, I need you to hear this. We've been through a lot together, you and I. I didn't like you at first – that's no secret. But even then, every stupid thing you did, it was to protect your sister. She didn't always see that, but I did. You've got such a big heart, Bellamy."

"Clarke -"

"People follow you. You inspire them because of this." She places a hand to his chest, and he has to force himself not to bend and kiss her. He remembers finding that a challenge the first time they had this conversation, as well. "But the only way to make sure we survive is if you use this, too."

He knows his line. He cried himself to sleep to the sound of _I got you for that_ every night for five years.

But this time round, he says something different.

"I love you."

She's surprised to hear it – he can see that – and he's surprised to hear it too. He's loved her for years, or possibly for months, and he's been telling her so for a good few weeks.

But he hasn't quite come out and said it so clearly before. Not bold and plain like that. Not those three long-overdue words.

"That's not your line." She says, a trembling smile on her face, tears in her eyes.

"No." He agrees. "But it's what I should have said."

…...

He's getting better, and that makes him proud. It makes him happy, too, because his arm is feeling good and his heart is feeling light, and his thoughts are making ever more sense with each day that passes.

It makes him sad to get better, as well, though. It fills him with a gradually growing sense of dread. As soon as he gets better, he has to leave. He has to go back to Bardo, and he has to get back to Clarke.

It's nearly time, now, he can feel it, and he knows Clarke and Madi can feel it too.

"Are you going home, soon, Bellamy?" Madi asks him as they sit in the living room and read together one evening.

"No, Madi. Not quite. _This_ is my home, now. But I have to go away, and you won't see me again for a while."

"How long?"

"Centuries." He admits, willing the tears away. "But it won't feel that long, I promise. And when it's all over, we'll find somewhere like this valley. We'll find somewhere green, and we'll catch fish and read stories."

He spares a moment to wish that were actually true. He saw precious few fish, on Sanctum, and even fewer opportunities for a peaceful life amongst the green.

Clarke calls him out on his beautiful fiction, later that night.

"You've never told me about the green valley and the fishing before." She points out shrewdly. "The version of the story you told me ended with us taking Sanctum and your sister going into the anomaly."

He acknowledges that with a nod. "That's where I'm up to. But that's not where it ends. I'm not letting our story end until we make a home together like this one."

…...

It's time.

This time, he knows he will make it all the way into the cave and back to Bardo. This time, he knows he will succeed in leaving Clarke behind. He can feel it in his heart, and he can feel it in his arm which no longer remembers the sting of Men in White and their needles.

He hates it – he hates it so much it hurts with a new kind of burn – but he loves her, so he needs to go back and find her.

It's a strange night, the night before the morning he has decided he will leave. They make love for a long time, gently and carefully, then quickly and frantically, then they take a break to lie together and kiss for a while before starting out all over again. They tell their story, right from the very beginning, every single moment they can remember sharing up until the present.

They don't sleep very much. But that's OK. He will have plenty of time to sleep when his mission is through.

His name is Bellamy Blake. His deepest desire is to make a home with Clarke Griffin.

As long as he keeps his wits about him tomorrow, he might just make that happen.

…...

The morning dawns, and they eat breakfast. Clarke has set half a dozen apples out on the table, and it makes him fall in love with her all over again. He never realised she had a sentimental side, until they spent six months living together in this valley in peacetime.

She sends Madi away to play after breakfast. Then she turns his world upside down.

"I'm coming with you." She announces.

"No. No, you can't. You can't be on Bardo." He starts to panic, clutching at her hands, begging her to see sense.

She shakes her head. "I know. I know, and I'm not coming to Bardo. That's not what I meant. I'm going to come with you as far as I can. Right up to the cave, to see you on your way."

He nods, understanding her. He's pretty sure a piece of her will be coming with him anyway, lodged deep in his heart and refusing to let go.

…...

He was right to feel confident. He feels fine – better than fine.

He feels like a determined inside man, ready to venture into Bardo and bring their world crashing down.

They're in the cave, now, looking right into the anomaly, and he can feel Clarke's hand trembling in his own. He wants to stay with her forever, but he knows it's time to leave. If he gets this right, he might just get to spend the rest of his life at her side.

He spares a moment to turn and kiss her, hard and hungry, memorising the softness of her lips and the firmness of her spirit.

"I'll see you soon." He promises, then realises his mistake. "Soon for me. A lifetime for you."

"It's OK." She gives him a brave, teary smile. She never did stop crying over him, he notes now.

"Nothing about this is OK."

"It _will be_ OK. When we get to make that home together."

He nods, jaw clenched, throat thick.

"Go on, Bellamy. Go help me save the world. I'll be waiting for you."

He nods again, tears rolling down his cheeks. He knows he's about to see her again, but he's not about to see _this_ Clarke, and somehow that feels like an important distinction.

He spares a moment to confront a frankly terrifying thought. What if she doesn't remember this? What if she doesn't remember their six months together? What if she doesn't remember this most important chapter of their relationship?

He shakes that thought away, annoyed with himself. He didn't remember her, not so long ago, and they worked it out. Working things out is what they do best.

He presses another brisk kiss to her lips.

"I love you." He says, because that seems more useful than goodbye.

"I love you too. May we meet again."

"May we meet again."

The valley falls away in a fog of green.

…...

He needs to get to Clarke.

That's the first thought in Bellamy's mind, as soon as he arrives back in Bardo.

He spares a moment to notice that his memories seem to be intact, that his mind seems to be functioning. He remembers kissing Clarke and loving her, he remembers leaving her for dead and bringing her back to life.

He remembers that his name is Bellamy Blake, and that his deepest desire is to make a home with Clarke Griffin.

Without further hesitation, he sets out down the long white corridor.

He's been an inside man before, of course, so he manages well enough. He hides behind corners when Men in White walk towards him, and they presume they are safe here, so they don't look round corners too closely. He listens in on every conversation he can, desperately fishing for information. He's a better fisherman than assassin, it turns out - he picks up quite a lot of useful material.

He needs to get to Clarke.

They make it almost too easy for him, in the end. They really do have a high opinion of their own invincibility, these Men in White.

They'd probably be surprised to learn that their former assassin even knew the word _invincibility_ , he thinks, after they scrambled his brain so thoroughly.

Anyway, they tell him everything he needs to know – or rather, they tell each other, oblivious to the fact that they have a spy in their midst. They tell him that Clarke is in room seventeen, and that they are about to begin processing.

"I don't understand how she's still alive." One Man in White says to his companion.

"The assassin will play his part. But in the meantime, we may as well begin reconditioning."

That gives Bellamy another dose of urgency, as he picks up his heels and starts jogging towards room seventeen.

More Men in White are in the room, still unsuspecting, still oblivious to the determined inside man in their midst.

"Look at this!" One says.

"What?"

"Her memories. They've just changed – just like that! Another – what? - six months' worth of memories has just appeared."

"Wipe them." His colleague says with a wave of his hand.

Huh. That's not happening.

Bellamy knocks each of them out with a well-placed blow to the back of the head. Six months and a lifetime, and it all comes down to that.

He starts to pull tubes out of Clarke's arms, tugs the goggles off her head. He doesn't know whether they've had chance to start working on her yet, but he thinks he got in those blows to the head before they began wiping her.

He did make it in time. That becomes very clear, the moment she sits up in her chair as best she can, tugging at her restraints, in order to kiss him hard on the mouth.

He spares a moment to kiss her back, but only a moment. They will have a lifetime to kiss, as long as they can get out of here, and back to Sanctum, and hatch a viable plan.

He pulls away, and looks her in the eyes. "You remembered?"

"I remembered." She confirms. "Now let's get out of here."

He laughs, and sets to work undoing her restraints. That's the Clarke he loves, pragmatism and affection, balanced on a knife edge.

Her restraints fully untied, he helps her to her feet. He keeps hold of her hand as they slip out of the door and start jogging down the corridor, leaving that insincere _Welcome to Bardo_ gloating down from the wall behind them.

"Where are we going?" She asks him, as they run down the corridor of white.

"No idea." He tells her, with the ghost of a grin. "But we'll be OK."

It should be too soon to know that for sure, of course. They are still in enemy territory, jogging around an assassin factory with no exit in sight.

But all the same, he fancies their chances. He's never found a problem yet that he and Clarke can't solve together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
